A mess to the end

Bulls 107, Raptors 97

On probably his last night as the Bulls' coach, what were the first words out of his mouth?

That one of his players had shown up late for the game.

Yes, again.

A season of insubordination, infighting, oversleeping, missed flights, the dumping of a key player and the firing of a head coach -- maybe two -- came to a merciful end Wednesday night at the United Center, where the Bulls beat the Toronto Raptors 107-97.

General manager John Paxson is likely to tell Boylan Thursday morning that the Bulls are going to look someplace else for a coach.

When a team's record is 49-33 one season but 33-49 the next, it usually needs to be rebuilt from bottom to top.

"I would love to get another chance to coach this team," Boylan said, but chances are two-thirds-a-season is all the chance he is going to get.

It feels quite a bit like 1979, when the Bulls fired coach Larry Costello in mid-February, let assistant coach Scotty Robertson run the team until the season ended in April and then gave the job to Jerry Sloan.

It's a lousy break for the 52-year-old Boylan, who inherited a dysfunctional bunch from Scott Skiles two days after Christmas and did the best he could.

He didn't make a mess of things by any means, but neither did he inspire the Bulls to new heights. They went 24-32 for him.

"He was put in a bad situation ... well, a tough situation," Bulls guard Chris Duhon said before the game in an otherwise deadly silent locker room. "Let him start a season from the beginning and he can do his own work, lay down his own laws. I think he would do a great job."

The last thing Boylan needed or expected on this season's last night was yet another disciplinary action involving a player.

But when the Bulls got to the UC for a 4:30 p.m. shootaround, not all of them were there. Joakim Noah didn't stroll in until around 6:20.

Boylan showed admirable restraint in not publicly blowing a fuse. He reported matter of factly what happened. Noah had flown to New York with the team's permission on his day off because of the death of a close friend. But he had not returned to Chicago on time.

It would take too much time to list all of the similar incidents from this 82-game, full-of-Bull mess. If ever a basketball team played hooky for an entire NBA season, it was this one.

So little was left at stake as it was. Boylan was asked beforehand what he could ask of the team at this date.

"You have to be professional about your approach to the game," he said quietly. "Respect the game."

If he was trying to make a subtle point about certain men in Bulls uniforms, he was doing it very well.

"Show somebody something," Boylan said. "Be a pro."

It was a lost season from the outset, so much so that the Bulls very rarely strung a good week's worth of games together. For six months, they seldom even had a reason to smile.

Even when something did go their way, like in a fairly comical 151-135 victory Monday in Milwaukee that included an 81-point Bulls first half, the mood didn't last.

Two nights later, there was the rookie Noah, tardy to the arena, scratched from the starting lineup and relieved of a pregame responsibility to thank Bulls fans for their support, which Kirk Hinrich did in his place.

"I know this wasn't the season you were expecting," were among Hinrich's parting words. It was about as accurate a moment as any Bull had all season.

At least Aaron Gray was able to laugh.

He had one before the game about a Milwaukee Buck who punched him in the groin area Monday and drew a three-game suspension for it.

And he had a laugh after the game because the 7-foot rookie had quite a night. Given his first NBA start, thanks to Noah, he had a double-double by the end of the first quarter. Gray came up with career highs of 22 rebounds and 19 points.

Maybe he has a future with this team. A lot of the men around him did not.

Duhon, for one, would not speculate if this could be his last time in a Bulls uniform.

What he did say was, "All of these guys in here are great. I know how much it has meant to me to be a Chicago Bull, and if there's a regret, it's that you regret not being able to perform up to expectations people had."

They won three of their last four games and still finished 16 games below .500.

Boylan said he still isn't sure where the Bulls went wrong.

"We let things bother us," he said. "I thought we had a formula for success, but obviously we didn't."

Does this team at least have a strong nucleus for the seasons to come?

Boylan thought about this for a second, then said, "That's a question for John."

It will be question No. 2 for Paxson, right after the first one Thursday. The one pertaining to who's going to coach this messed-up team.